


Argo's Legacy

by deaderted



Category: BattleTech: MechWarrior
Genre: Comrades in Arms, Friendship, Gen, Mecha, Mercenaries, Military Science Fiction, Original Character(s), Slice of Life, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:42:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27724996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deaderted/pseuds/deaderted
Summary: The Argo's owners retire after the events of the Battletech game, passing the battered ship on to a new commander and crew who must start from scratch rebuilding the ship and establishing their own mercenary company. Mechwarriors and command staff deal with rivalries, romances, secret agendas, and the horrors of combat, all while trying to keep their company afloat.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Descriptions of battlemechs are primarily based on the PGI/HBS models when applicable. If a tech description deviates from lore, assume it's due to the cobbled-together, used-future nature of the setting.
> 
> Style note: BT loves camel-casing: MechWarrior, BattleMech, MechTech, JumpShip, etc. I realize that might be part of the old 80s cheese appeal for some, but I think it's distracting and contrived in most cases, especially for common nouns, so I've opted not to do that.

**THEN**

I was in a merc bar on Weldry when I met Darius. Tall and slim, with a demeanor warmer than his analytical face, I had him pegged for a recruiter as soon as he sat down, and he knew it. Still, we did the dance, smalltalk about the Solaris bout on the holo above the bar, an anecdote here, a feeler question there. I kept waiting for the offer to come, but it didn’t. Usually, those types decide if they want you pretty quick. They know what skills they need and what liabilities they can justify. If you’re not worth their time, they extract and move on.

“Let’s cut to it,” I finally said. “If you’re looking for a mech pilot, my rate and resume are on the board. If you’re looking for something else, we’ve been talking a few hours, and you oughta know if you’ve found it or not. If you’re just bored, well, I’m getting tired, and the room is full of more entertaining folks than me.”

Darius smiled, the first real grin I’d seen from him that wasn’t just polite or bemused or wry. He invited me back to his Leopard to meet his boss. That was weird, and I started to suspect they wanted me as something other than a pilot. Command staff, maybe, someone with plenty of field experience they could pay a pilot’s rate and mold to their needs. That would explain the extended interview, but it made me nervous that they weren’t promoting from within. Maybe it was a startup.

Darius introduced me to one of the plainest, most unassuming people I’ve ever met. That is, unless you were living in certain parts of the Reach at any point in the last few years. In that case, you’d know about Kamea Arano’s personal grim reapers. A mercenary unit that came out of nowhere and tore through the Aurigan Directorate over the course of a year and then, when the civil war was over, blasted their way from one end of the Reach to the other racking up one of the best MBRC scores on record. That’s who Darius worked for.

The two of them laid all that out for me. How some lucky favors among higher ups landed them with a lostech ark called the  _ Argo _ , how they’d managed to avoid too much entanglement with the great houses by keeping their operational strength low, only ever fielding a single lance for high-value, precision work. They were exclusive, elite, they would have been legendary if they were a bigger unit; hell, they  _ were _ legendary in Aurigan space. And they were disbanding.

“Honestly, we’ve all gotten very rich, and we just don’t much care for the danger anymore,” Darius told me. “We’ve helped all our personnel secure plum positions with other companies, governments, academies. A couple pilots are starting a Solaris stable. A lot of folks are retiring. And,” he looked at the Commander and took a deep breath. “We want to pass the torch.”

That took some processing. I laughed. When they didn’t, I tried to protest. I was not the person to be handed a ship worth more than some worlds and told to start a mercenary company. But they insisted. They’d worked up a profile, and I checked every box. They wanted someone to grow into the role as they had had to, someone who would remake their own image in the halls of the  _ Argo _ rather than try to bend the legacy to fit them.

“Look, I’m a freelance mech jockey,” I said. “I’ve got field command experience, but nothing like a whole merc company. That’s a business.”

“The business part is what XOs are for,” the Commander said.

Darius rolled his eyes. “Look, we’re not giving you our business. We stopped being Markham’s Marauders the second the Argo tore free from Axylus. We’re giving you the means to remake yourself the way we did. There’s not a mercenary pilot in the galaxy that doesn’t dream of having their own company, run how they want. This is your chance.”

Every argument I tried had already been considered with a rebuttal prepared. I didn’t have a crew or command staff. Darius handed me a huge dossier of vetted applicants. I didn’t have money. They would bankroll hiring costs, and the company would be self-sustaining after that, barring a catastrophe. The  _ Argo _ was too valuable. The Commander smirked at that.

“Not as much as you’d think,” Darius said, and I got the first hint that they’d left out some details. “To start, it’s lostech, sure, but it’s a civilian vessel. Other than its size, it doesn’t offer much that current technology can’t do. Farah has made detailed specs available to anyone who might be interested, so there shouldn’t be any treasure hunters coming for it. Aside from that, though, it’s beat to hell.”

“You mean it’s a money pit,” I said. I was long past sold at that point, grasping for any excuse not to buy in.

“Maintenance might be an issue,” Darius admitted. “We got ambushed at a jump point by former Directorate loyalists. Aerospace fighters shot us all to hell. We had to deploy mechs in vacuum. By pure chance, a Coalition ship jumped in right after us and helped fight them off. We lost some people, mostly support. Gamma pod was shredded, Alpha and Beta took some nasty hits, and there wasn’t a subsystem aboard that didn’t sustain some kind of damage. Don’t get me wrong, it’s in better shape than when we got it—”

“But when we got it, it had been crashed into a moon for a few centuries,” the Commander said. “Look, if you’re not in, no hard feelings. We realize it’s a lot at once, and it’s not as turnkey as we might have made it sound. If you can’t commit to it, we understand. We wouldn’t have committed to it back then if we’d had any other options, which I’m sure you do. So consider them. We’ll consider our other prospects, and you’ll have first refusal. If we don’t hear from you by this time tomorrow, we’ll assume you’ve exercised that right.”

I shook their hands and went home to my place in the spaceport’s short-term housing complex. The sky was just beginning to lighten. I’d spent most of the night in that Leopard’s briefing room. I was twitching with nerves and thought I would never fall asleep. I opened the dossier Darius had given me, and when I woke up it was still on the first page.

Evening rush hour was in full swing when I got back to the bar. Out of habit, I checked for messages on the board, but no bites. That would have made things too easy, I guess.  _ Sorry, it’s a great offer, but I’ve got a six-month security position lined up with a big combat bonus, so I’ll have to decline. _ I got a glass of Timbiqui and found a seat on the back wall to look over the dossier.

It was big. It started with command staff recommendations. Executive officer, chief mech tech, chief engineer, navigator. Then mechwarriors, over a dozen to choose from, although the hiring budget only accounted for five or six. Then page after page after page of support staff, from mech techs to ship maintenance to medical personnel. A full roster. Well over a hundred people who would all be dependent on me for their lives and livelihoods.

A voice caught my ear, and I looked up to see Darius across the room, chatting up a couple mechwarriors. I didn’t recognize either of them from the dossier. He had to have seen me when he came in. Was he giving me space before the deadline? Or trying to coerce me somehow? How could he be so relaxed when he and his boss were in the process of handing over their entire storied legacy, not to mention an irreplaceable spaceship and a fortune in cash, to a stranger? Screw it.

“I’ll see you at the Leopard tonight, Darius,” I said as I passed him, giving a quick nod to the two mechwarriors. I went home. Let him read that how he wanted.

A few hours later, I was signing papers in the Leopard’s briefing room. I was surprised my signature came out right, but my hand was steady. The nerves were gone. Darius explained that a skeleton crew would be retained for another month to help onboard the new hires. Most of the incoming crew were local. The ones that weren’t had been sent priority HPG messages to get to Weldry immediately.

I was given a full inventory of company property. It was surprisingly little. A lot had been given away as severance or sold to reduce expenses when the decision to disband was made. A good chunk of the remainder had been damaged or destroyed in the attack at the jump point. But, at the heart, I had a ship that could do all a merc startup needed it to, even if it couldn’t yet do all it was capable of. Most importantly, there were BattleMechs. An  _ Assassin _ , a  _ Commando _ , a  _ Panther _ , a  _ Blackjack _ , and a  _ Shadow Hawk _ . Nothing heavy, and all in various stages of repair or refit. Spare parts were sparse. Ammo would last one or two engagements, three at most. It would do. It was mine.


	2. Chapter 2

**NOW**

I came to in the medbay. It wasn’t waking up anymore, not when I’d never really been asleep. They’d dose me real good around bedtime, and the pain would retreat a bit, and the world would go fuzzy. They’d turn out the lights, and I’d close my eyes, and it was almost like sleep, but not quite. I looked at my left arm. Still there. I looked at my right arm. Still missing.

It had been two weeks. A _Firestarter_ had rushed me, flamers wide open. The SRMs mounted beside my _Shadow Hawk’_ s cockpit cooked off. Stupid place to put a missile launcher. I don’t remember much of the days right after. Lots of needles and lights and pain. They could get me a basic prosthetic, maybe a cybernetic one down the line, but I had to heal first, and a lot more was damaged than my arm.

Concussion, ruptured eardrum, dislocated shoulder, broken ribs, second and third degree burns, and plenty of internal problems. Funny enough, a mech tech found my arm after the fight. Charred to a crisp, plastered to the roof of the cockpit. Funny enough.

Breakfast had already been delivered. It was still warm, steaming next to the noteputer on the tray table above my lap. I must have just missed them. I propped up the noteputer so I could read as I ate my powdered-egg omelet.

The reports were pretty dry. We'd been in transit, so there were no deployments to worry about, no combat. Progress was being made on patching the damage to the ship's exterior. Not proper repairs, mind you, but getting the holes covered so those areas could be pressurized. There were also some wild fluctuations in engine output, more than usual for the missile-pocked thrusters. Chief Engineer Sorenson was looking into it.

Beyond that, there were no disciplinary actions, no major budget concerns. Mech repairs were complete. Restocking of munitions and supplies would start as soon as we arrived in orbit over Itrom, which would be in a few hours. Hopefully we could pick up a job or two there. The northern half of the planet was uninhabitable due to radiation, but uninhabitable rarely means uninhabited. There were probably pirates we could hammer on for a few days and a paycheck. There was a tap at the curtain surrounding my bed.

“I’m up,” I said. “Come on in.”

The curtain swept aside, and my executive officer entered. Lisa Nakamura had compiled the morning reports that filled my noteputer. She was tall for a Combine woman, uniform crisp, black hair in a perfect, low bun. She stood at attention, eyes ahead. I sighed.

“At ease, lieutenant. Anything urgent or not in the reports that I need to know about?”

She relaxed a micron. “Nothing urgent sir. A few updates that didn’t make the report. My apologies.” I gestured for her to go on. “A mech tech suffered a broken hand early this morning while refitting a heat sink. He has been treated and will recover in two or three weeks. Chief Tech Turan expects no immediate detrimental impact on work, since all repairs are complete. We will arrive at Itrom in three hours. And Mechwarrior Bakshi’s callsign has changed yet again. She will be using ‘Duck’ going forward.”

“How long do you think that will last?”

“Perhaps a few hours, if I’m made to guess, sir.”

"Heh." I tried not to wince at the pain that syllable provoked. The last thing I wanted was to discourage Lisa's embryonic sense of humor. "Alright, sounds like everyone's doing just fine with me out of the way. Check the hiring board for Itrom and make a shortlist. When we get there, you and Lieutenant Vue do some interviews and get us a good one."

Her mouth twisted slightly at that. "Perhaps Lieutenant Malo would be a better choice, sir?"

"I want anyone coming in to know what they're getting into. You and Naomi will represent the full spectrum. Plus, she'll be their immediate superior, so she'll need to make sure she has a good fit."

"Understood."

"If there's nothing else, you're dismissed. Tell Ray to drop by in an hour or so whenever it's convenient."

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

A new hire. My replacement. I wanted two full lances worth of pilots, eight people. We didn’t have that many mechs, but it insured we could keep working if somebody got hurt. Mechs heal as fast as the techs can work, but bodies take longer. Just my luck that the body in question was mine. At least I had a job outside the cockpit. My arm wasn’t going to grow back. If one of the others had taken that hit, would I have kept them on? Kept paying salary to a body in a bed, paid for a bionic replacement so they could fight again after recovering? I dug back into the reports. I’d cross that bridge when it came.

Chief Mech Tech Ray Turan arrived an hour later. In my experience, mech techs come in two varieties: bulky and loud or wiry and manic. Ray was the latter, fidgeting with a pocket zipper on their stained coveralls as they rocked from foot to foot, freshly shaved head bobbing.

“Lisa said you needed me?”

“I saw the _Shadow Hawk_ was finished.”

“Mostly, sure. It’s combat ready, but we’re still painting and cleaning. Gotta keep the techs busy, you know?”

“Would a refit keep them busy enough?”

Ray had a way of smiling with just their eyes. They were beaming. “You’re thinking about a new loadout?”

I held up the noteputer, displaying the mech bay inventory. “We’ve got an AC/10 on hand. Do you think we can swap it in?”

Ray shrugged. “A cannon’s a cannon, sure. The Shad’s is easier to access than most. Ammo feed will be a pain with the larger caliber, but there’s room. You’ll want to drop the SRMs and some heat sinks. It’ll run warmer and your ammo won’t last as long.”

“I’m hoping with a bigger gun the fights won’t last as long, either. Don’t rush it, but have it ready if we turn up a job soon.”

“Should be done sometime tonight, then.”

“See to it.”

After Ray left, I called up Itrom’s MBRC job board. As expected, there were a few promising contracts available in the northern hemisphere. I flagged them as prospects, then another caught my eye. The post was a couple weeks old. Some terrorist or pirate or something was raising hell near one of the smaller settlements in a “battlemech of unknown make.” There were pictures of a burning fuel station and the ruins of a grain processing center, security footage that was all pixelated darkness punctuated by blinding flashes.

No wonder they hadn’t had any takers. That was a terrible amount of intelligence to risk a deployment on, and the pay they offered wasn’t close to enough to make up for the uncertainty. A single mech could be anything from a _Locust_ to an _Atlas_ . It was probably something between those extremes, but nobody wants to risk having one of their mechs wrecked by a lucky shot from a surprise _Hunchback_ , at least not for what they were paying.

I replayed the security video. Pause. Reverse, play again. Pause. Maybe there was something. I paged Ray and Leilani Malo, my senior mechwarrior. When they arrived, I showed them the pictures and video. “Is there anything here to give you an idea what kind of mech we’re dealing with?” I asked. “Even weight class would be something.”

“ _Griffin_ ,” Leilani said, almost immediately.

My eyebrows rose. “That was fast.”

She pointed at one of the pictures, a smashed civilian pickup at the fuel station. “My first time on maneuvers with the militia, some citizen reporter type snuck into the AO. He left his car somewhere he shouldn’t have, and somebody in a _Griffin_ stepped on it. It was all over every distributor he could get it on for a month. Holo, video, print. I know what a _Griffin_ footprint in a vehicle looks like.”

Ray and I exchanged a glance. “Do you know who that pilot was?” I asked, trying to keep a serious face. “They sound pretty reckless, and I’d hate to accidentally hire them.”

I could see she was fighting off a smile. “Their name was never released. It certainly wasn’t anyone who reported to me.”

“Well, Lani seems pretty certain, Ray. Can you corroborate?”

Ray advanced the video and set a few seconds to loop. “This is the only real look we get at the machine, and the jumpjets are overloading the camera. But, right before they ignite, _here_ we can see a leg silhouetted against the background fire. That looks like a _Griffin_ knee baffle. After it jumps, and right before it leaves the frame, we can see that the jet is forking. That’s consistent with jump nozzle damage I’ve seen before. Not exclusive to a Griff, sure, but they’ve got a style that’s prone to it.” They shrugged. “I don’t see anything to say she’s wrong.”

“Good enough for me,” I said. “Lani, get a lance prepped. I’ll have Lisa call ahead, and we might be able to hit the ground running on this one. Tell your people if they can take him down easy, they might be bringing home a new ride.”

“Yes, sir,” she said as she left.

“I’ll get the mechs warmed up,” Ray said, following her.

I keyed the intercom by my bed. “You there, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, Commander,” Lisa answered.

“There’s a job two weeks old, about 300 miles west of the main spaceport. Single unidentified mech. Tell them we’ll take it for unlimited salvage. No base cash, but we do want the capture bonus if we can bring the pilot in alive.”

“That sounds like a gamble, sir.”

“Ray and Lani think it’s a _Griffin_ , so we’re not going in completely blind. I told Lani to have her people aim carefully. As long as we don’t core it, this should be a pretty profitable job.”

“Yes, sir.”

I laid back on the bed. There was nothing more to do. With any luck, Lani’s lance would be deploying as soon as we reached orbit. Meanwhile, Lisa would arrange a shore leave rotation for the crew, and she and Ray would oversee shopping for personnel and supplies. And I would wait. Lisa might send an occasional update, but that was unlikely unless it was urgent. Assuming we got the _Griffin_ job, I’d be able to watch the battleROM feed, but that would be at least a couple hours away.

“Coming in,” a voice said, and the curtain whipped back to reveal Doctor Mackey. He was a lean, handsome guy who looked too young to be a doctor, but he’d kept me alive so far. “How we doing?” He asked, grabbing the slowly scrolling printout from one of the bedside monitors.

“I’m bored and I hurt,” I said.

“One to ten?”

“Four unless I move, then seven.”

“Don’t move, then.” He pulled the sheet off me and looked at my legs. “They took these bandages off last night?” He gestured to the tender, red skin of my left calf.

I shrugged. “I didn’t do it.”

“Looks like it’s doing well. I’ll have them put some more antibiotic on it when they change the other bandages.” He pointed to my mummified right leg. I didn’t want to think about the mess under all that gauze.

“So when am I getting out?”

“When you’re better.” He worked his way up my body, and I tried not to grimace as he checked the sutured incisions across my abdomen and prodded my ribs.

“I’m a lot better than I was. At least let me have a wheelchair. I need to see my people.”

“Any headaches?”

“Not more than normal.”

“Seeing spots or blurry vision?”

“No.”

“Any ringing in the ears?”

“No.”

“Nausea?”

“It comes and goes. Not too bad.”

“Dizziness?”

“No.”

“Good.” He scribbled something on a clipboard.

“So I’m free to go?”

“I’m going to step your painkillers down again. If your baseline gets above a five, let us know. At this point, it looks like most of your repairs are complete, it’s just a matter of resting so all those patched holes can cement themselves. Right now, any strong or sudden movements will tear you right back open. You pop one of those internal sutures trying to stand up, and you’ll reset the recovery clock at best and hemorrhage to death at worse. Got that?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“I don’t want you eating too much at once, but I’m going to bump you up to five meals a day. They’ll be smaller, but you’ll get more in total. Any questions?”

I raised the four-inch stump that used to be my right arm. “My hand itches.”

“We’ll get you a mirror. Fool your brain into thinking your left is your right so you can scratch it. If it gets to be painful, more than an itch, let us know.”

He left. The day dragged on. A nurse brought a mirror. More nurses came and went, changing bandages, bringing drugs, and checking vitals, cheerful and professional the whole time. It was exhausting. I knew that my body was working overtime to heal, but that didn’t stop me from feeling like I was laying in bed doing nothing. When word finally came that Lani’s lance had deployed, I jumped at the chance to do something, even if that just meant following along with their progress.

I plugged my noteputer into a wall jack and called up the lance’s battleROM feed. It wasn’t as immersive as a dedicated console or simulator would have been, but I could listen to their comms and bounce between mechs, seeing what they saw as it happened. If I couldn’t pilot a mech myself—or sit in a simulator, or go down to the mech bay and look at one of them—I’d happily take the fourth best thing.

A small tag in the corner of the display read “Sizzle,” a callsign indicating that the feed had defaulted to mechwarrior Samson Simpson. Lani had rank, but she must have designated him as lance leader for this operation. It was something I encouraged. Lani and my other senior mechwarrior, Naomi Vue, both made a point to hand over their role to someone else every few deployments. In the event they were incapacitated, there would be someone ready to step in. When I had gone down, it was Sam who took over and finished the fight.

The screen was dominated by the forward camera view from his _Assassin_ , with diagnostic readouts spread down either side, all showing me exactly what he saw in his cockpit. It was dusk in that corner of Itrom, and long shadows rolled past as the mech accelerated down a road between vast grain fields. An icon in the corner blinked to indicate the pilots were talking. I turned up the volume.

“—always falls back across these fields,” Sam was saying. “There’s a forested area just past them. Locals say they’ve searched there with no luck, but we can’t be sure how close they were willing to look. We’ll sweep through tight, then spread when we come out the other side. This is all flat farmland for miles, but there’s scattered stands of trees. He’s probably hiding in one of those, or an abandoned building somewhere. The good thing is, it’ll be dark soon. He doesn’t attack every night, so we can’t just sit and wait, but if he does, we should be able to see the fireworks from well outside sensor range and get back in time to pop him.”

“What do we do if we find him?” Lani asked. Three small tiles ran across the bottom of the screen, each one labeled with a callsign and showing a minimized feed from one of the other mechs. The “Icebox” tile flashed to show she was talking. I tapped it, and the feed from her _Blackjack_ grew to replace Sizzle’s as the main display. All systems nominal.

“If you’ve got the drop on him, call the rest of us in so we can surround him before engaging,” Sam said. But if you’ve got a good shot on a leg or jump jets, take it. We get to keep anything we don’t break. He’s outnumbered, so if we pin him down, he might just give up. There’s a bonus if we bring him in alive.”

“So who’s he gonna ride with?” drawled Lawson Braithwaite, and the “Lockdown” tile showing the feed from his _Panther_ blinked. “It’s pretty cramped in here, but I bet I could strap him to the outside.”

“We’re capturing him, not rewarding him,” Jordan “JJ” Jones said. Their _Commando_ was the smallest and oldest machine we had, but its SRM loadout made it a nightmare when it could get in close with sniper mechs like the _Griffin_.

“Icebox has the most room,” Sam said. “That’ll be the plan until we’ve got reason to change it. Now, line abreast, fifty-meter spacing. Slow and steady. No lights.”

I cycled through the feeds as the lance entered the trees. They were using a combination of thermal and magres imaging to search the woods. Even if it was shut down to avoid detection, 55 tons of battlemech would shine like a beacon on magres, and thermal would be able to pick out the pilot or the _Griffin’_ s low-power life support emissions against the cool night air.

Nothing turned up in the first bunch of trees. When the lance reached a river cutting through the fields beyond it, Sam sent Lani and Lawson across. “Me and Lockdown will follow the river north five clicks and see if there’s any damage to either bank from a crossing, or jump scars on the ground. Icebox and JJ do the same to the south. If you find something, let us know. If you don’t, both of you advance west as you work your way back towards us. We’ll do the same. Search anything that looks big enough to hide a mech.”

“Have you checked the space between Lodo’s ears?” Jordan asked.

“Naw, I got my spare _Atlas_ up there,” Lawson answered as his _Panther_ waded into the river. “No room for anything else. Except maybe my love for you, JJ, that don’t take much space.”

It took thirty minutes for each pair to get to the end of their five-kilometer search leg. The riverbank was a bust for both, and each eventually turned west. The banter had died down, replaced with silence broken only by occasional acknowledgments. The whole affair was professional and routine, even boring. I found myself watching Lani’s feed, the steady rocking of her _Blackjack’_ s measured steps less distracting than the bouncing gaits of the lighter mechs. A nurse came by with another meal and dose of painkillers. I could feel myself starting to drift. That was fine. If anything happened, the noise would wake me up.


	3. Chapter 3

Something touched my leg, and my eyes flew open. “What?”

A burly nurse I knew as Tommy was just finishing with the bandage on my right thigh. “Well, hey there,” he said, grinning.

I flailed around for the noteputer. “Where’s—”

He passed it to me from the bedside table. “Here you go. You were out cold when I came in. Soundest sleep you’ve had since you came in.”

That was true. I felt groggy as hell. “What happened—”

“With the mission? They got picked up about an hour ago, should be here any minute if they’re not already. We got word one of them was a little banged up, nothing serious.”  
“That’s good.”

“And I’ve got more good news,” he said, kicking my bed’s wheel brakes into the off position. “Doctor Mackey says you can go down to the mech bay and visit!”

“The mech bay?” My brain was still fuzzy. I couldn’t have heard that right.

He heaved on the bed and pulled it away from the wall. “You are not to leave the bed for any reason. You are not to stretch, twist, reach, or lift any object weighing more than five pounds. If you violate any of these orders, Doctor Mackey will know, and I will get to watch the _Argo_ leave orbit from ground level. So please, don’t hurt yourself.” He wheeled me through the medbay doors.

It was the first time in two weeks I’d been outside that room. There was a battered couch in the small waiting area that overjoyed me by virtue of being furniture that wasn’t a bed. Luckily, I was aware enough to keep the thought to myself. I didn’t need Tommy second guessing my escape.

The elevator doors slid open as we approached, and a bloody mechwarrior was ushered off by a medic. It was JJ, holding a bloody rag to their nose under blackened eyes. “But I wath wearig a helbet,” they protested.

“You still have to be evaluated for concussion,” the medic explained. “It won’t take—”

“Hebbo, Cobbander!” JJ interrupted, dropping the rag to snap a salute. Blood poured from their nose, coupling with their bruised eyes and pale skin to make a morbid clown face. The medic grabbed the rag and tried to staunch the flow.

“You look like shit, Mechwarrior Jones. Do what you’re told,” I said, mustering my Command Voice.

“Yeb, thir,” they said, and the medic practically shoved them into the medbay.

“Good spirits,” Tommy said as we entered the elevator. “Mission must have been successful.”

“We can hope,” I said, relieved a broken nose was the worst of the injuries. At the same time, I was guessing the cost of ammo and repairs, trying to figure out just how hard the fight would have to have been to make the expense not worth it. Without knowing the condition of the _Griffin_ , assuming we actually _had_ salvaged it, the effort was useless.

It was a long trip from Alpha pod to the mech bay, but Tommy made time. At one point, we turned down a corridor littered with tools and loose wall panels. A tech was waist-deep in the bulkhead. There was a loud bang followed by the rattle of a dropped tool and a stream of muffled curses from inside the wall.

“We’ll go this way,” Tommy said, abruptly changing course.

You can always smell a mech bay long before you reach it. The sting of hot coolant, the sharpness of industrial solvents, a hint of gunpowder, the burnt ozone of still-cooling PPCs, and the tang of hot metal all permeated the lifts and hallways in greater and greater proportion the closer we got. My fingers began to twitch, like I was about to see a lost love. The last set of doors opened, and there I was.

Any mech bay feels enormous. They have to be big to house a bunch of 30-foot battlemechs. But on the _Argo_ , there was no hangar door open to the landscape to give a worldly perspective, no vast sky to remind you that the big machines were tiny in the grand scheme of things. Six mechs were arranged in a circle, each one backed into its own gantry-bound cubicle. Despite the array of floodlights around each machine, the space was filled with dim shadows. The bark of pneumatic tools, the clang of fused armor breaking free, and the shouts of the mech techs all quickly faded with the effort it took to echo all the way from one end of the room to the other and back again.

I saw Sam and Lani first. He looked like a cover model for _MERC MAG_ , the way his cooling vest showed off his dark, toned arms and bare chest as he leaned against a stack of spare armor plates chugging a bottle of water. On the other hand, Lani sprawled across the top of a folding table in an oversized t-shirt emblazoned with the faded logo of a long-defunct Solaris team, a lucky charm she kept in her cockpit. Both of them jumped to an approximation of attention when they saw me. It didn't last long.

"Look who it is!" Sam yelled as he ran over.

"Doc finally caved,” Lani mused.

“So how’d it go?” I asked.

Lani pointed to a scarred _Griffin_ suspended in one of the repair cubicles. “Well, we got the mech.” Its left leg was nearly severed above the knee, and horribly mangled below it. The cockpit canopy was missing.

“He ejected,” I said.

Lani nodded. “We don’t know where he came down. We looked, but the fight had been pretty rough. Sizzle made the call to give the coordinates to the locals and let them track him down.”

No capture bonus, then. I looked at the other mechs. They were all battered, more than I would have expected from a four-on-one fight. “What happened?”

“Some bullshit,” Sam muttered. “Personally, I think this guy lived in the town. He knew we were coming and relocated his mech beforehand, somewhere he knew we wouldn’t look. To the east, maybe. We spent over three hours searching, then he comes running up behind us when we’re still in pairs. My sensors ping him right as I get a missile warning. Me and Lodo held him off till Icebox and JJ got there, then he starts jumping. Leads us on a merry little chase, and the whole time we’re trying to choose our shots for salvage, he’s chewing us up.”

I nodded. That was a risk I had taken. Mech targeting systems just aren’t precise enough for carefully placed shots. Salvage could be a nice bonus after a fight, but trying to disable a mech without destroying it was counterintuitive to both the targeting computers and most mechwarriors’ combat instincts.

“I’m guessing this guy never used his LRMs in town,” Sam went on, “Because he had missiles to spare. If we closed the distance to keep them and the PPC out of play, he’d swing on us. That’s what happened to JJ. They rushed in with the _Commando_ and he does a little jet hop forward and catches them with a backhand. That’s when Lodo legged him and he punched out.”

“Sumbitch was being a pain in the ass,” Lawson said, walking up with a grilled cheese sandwich in hand. He was a lanky guy with a patchy beard and an expression someone who didn’t know better might call vacant. He probably could have snuck out of his mech and joined the locals after the fight without being given a second glance. “JJ opened up a hole in his leg right before getting swatted. I just shoved the barrel in and let her rip.” He also handled the _Panther_ better than anyone else in the company.

“We did all we could, Commander,” Lani said.

That was obvious from looking at the mechs. Lani’s _Blackjack_ was almost entirely black from missile impacts. The _Panther_ was similarly scarred, with gaping holes in the upper arm and torso. I could just see the SRM ammo bin tucked away in its chest. Another hit there could have been catastrophic. The nimble _Assassin_ was relatively untouched, as was the smaller _Commando_ , but the latter sported a deep gash across its domed head, exposing bright, unpainted metal. Sam had said JJ got backhanded. They were lucky. A more solid hit might have caved in the cockpit.

“Alright, now, that’s enough loitering,” Ray shouted as they rode up on a small utility cart. “This is an active repair facility, you know. And you,” they pointed at Lawson. “A battlemech is not a diner, and a heat sink is not a grill. I don’t want to find butter on a mech again.”

“I’ll make sure the others know,” Lawson said seriously, stuffing the remainder of his sandwich into his mouth.

“Make sure _you_ know,” Ray said. “Now, everybody that’s got two arms, _out_.”

My breath caught. Lani grimaced. “I’ll get you the after-action within the hour,” she said, shooing her fellow pilots out of the mech bay.

Ray turned to me. “Was that too much? I don’t mean to make light of the injury.” They gestured vaguely at the area where my right arm used to be.

I wiggled the stump. “To be honest, Ray, I don’t know. I don’t think I’m used to it enough to be offended. Don’t really think of myself as an amputee yet, I guess.” It was weird to have it acknowledged in such a non-medical context. “So tell me about this _Griffin_.”

“Oof, the _Griffin_. Follow me.” Tommy dutifully pushed the bed along as Ray talked. “They didn’t core it, sure, that’s the good news. Weapons are intact. The cockpit was trashed by the ejection, but aside from the missing chair, most of it’s superficial. The leg is the problem. I know what you’re thinking, the leg’s just myomer and armor and a couple big bars of internal structure, and I should be glad it’s not the torso. And I am glad, sure, but just look at it. The PPC shot above the knee vaporized the internal structure there. I’m not exaggerating, there’s a good foot and a half of mech bone just gone. And that’s not to mention what the proximity did to the cannon itself, but I digress. The SRMs completely shredded the knee actuator, scrapped most of the armor, and blew out a few more chunks of structure. I’d say the _Commando_ got off at least two volleys in practically the same spot.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Fix it, sure. With two weeks of round-the-clock shifts and some spare parts. If the machine shop was up and running, we could do most of the fabrication in-house. As it is, we’ll have to rent some time in one on-planet, and that won’t be cheap.”

“What about finding a spare leg?”

Ray shrugged. “I can look, sure. I’ve already got an order of ammo coming in. I’ll see if the supplier has any leads, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up. When I went down earlier today the only parts I saw were two thirds of an old _Stinger_.”

“Do what you can. How’s the _Shadow Hawk_ coming?”

“The SRMs are gone. The autocannon ammo is gone. We were in the process of demounting the cannon itself when all the rest of this happened.” They waved a hand around the bay at the five other damaged mechs. “But we’ve got the AC/10 out of storage, and it is a beautiful piece of work.” I noticed a tarp covering something big on a pallet by the _Hawk’_ s feet. “No peeking till it’s ready,” Ray said.

“Understood, Chief. Prioritize the _Griffin_ for now. Clean up the damage but don’t worry about a full repair and rearm until we’ve got a better idea of our options. Let me know what you find. Let’s head back, Tommy.” He deftly navigated me back to the medbay. Lisa was waiting.

“You again,” I said.

“Me again.” Lisa passed me a noteputer.

“I’m off in ten minutes,” Tommy said. “Yell if you need anything.” He left.

“Thanks, Tommy,” I said. “What am I looking at here? New hire?”

“Potentially,” Lisa said.

The noteputer showed a young woman with straight, well-kept black hair and the neutral expression common to academy headshots. Her name was Mayra Lee. I scrolled down, skimming through her background and history. The personal details were light, but that wasn’t unusual in this line of work. Capellan native, formal battlemech training, first mercenary deployment a little over a year ago. I could read between the lines well enough to know she was most likely a noble, either a runaway or exile. She’d been with two other small companies, both of which were now defunct. Also not uncommon; mercenary work was as financially risky as it was physically. A battleROM file was attached at the bottom.

“Seems fine,” I said. “Maybe a bit boring. You have concerns?”

“Lieutenant Vue and I reviewed her battleROM. It was surprisingly comprehensive, not like the greatest hits compilations we usually get. Lieutenant Vue noted a small number of mistakes, but our overall assessment was that she was quite skilled, particularly in close quarters.”

“Personality?”

“Politely distant, I would say. Reserved, for a mechwarrior. Lieutenant Vue’s opinion was that she’s still somewhat unaccustomed to mercenary society, but noted that she preferred that to ‘an edgy lone wolf smoking in the corner.’”

“So why the hesitation?”

Lisa took a deep breath and reached for the noteputer. “If I may, sir.” She called up the battleROM recording. “This is footage of Mechwarrior Lee’s last engagement. On Lyreton.”

“Oh.”

The screen showed the feed from a mech deep in what appeared to be a losing battle. To the left, a _Cicada_ was brought down by a barrage of laserfire. A frantic order to fall back came through the radio, followed by a protest that the enemy was advancing too quickly. Someone interrupted to repeat the call to retreat, saying they would delay the approaching line of mechs. A blinking icon showed that it was Lee doing the talking. She throttled up her mech and charged the nearest enemy. A _Shadow Hawk_ in familiar colors.

Lisa reached to stop the video, but I held up my hand. Lee’s _Firestarter_ was in a full sprint. She fired her medium lasers, boring a hole in the _Shadow Hawk’_ s chest and gouging a line across one arm. SRMs erupted against her legs, and she juked right to avoid a laser that ignited a tree behind her. Her machineguns and flamers erupted, tracking a line across the _Shadow Hawk’_ s torso that coalesced on the SRM launcher mounted beside the cockpit. There was an explosion. An _Assassin_ roared in on jumpjets, pelting the _Firestarter_ with laserfire and SRMs.

“That’s the best distraction we’ll get, now get moving!” Lee yelled. She triggered her own jumpjets and leaped clear of the _Assassin_ . A PPC blast narrowly missed her upon landing. Her light mech started to pass the slower elements of the retreating force. The rear view showed the _Assassin_ finishing off a limping _Vindicator_ before loosing a flight of LRMs at the retreating _Firestarter_. Only one hit, shaving a bit of armor off the back just before the mech made it safely out of range. A dropship descended in the distance for evac. I stopped the playback, reversed, and paused at the moment the _Shadow Hawk_ exploded. My _Shadow Hawk_. Lisa was silent.

I stared at the screen. I’ve seen lots of combat footage. Sanitized press reports, curated documentaries, raw battleROMs. Regardless of flavor, I knew there were people inside those machines. Sometimes I knew them personally. Seeing my own near death was different. Inside that flaming battlemech, I was a faceless, bit-part villain in somebody else’s story. Sam’s _Assassin_ didn’t swoop in heroically to protect a fallen comrade, it was just another implacable automaton continuing the enemy’s relentless advance.

“Sir?” Lisa ventured.

I pointed to a piece of debris on the screen, a black smear silhouetted against the fireball. “What are the chances that’s a piece of me?”

“Sir?”

“Metal or meat, what do you think?”

“I…”

I could feel a laugh coming, and I wasn’t sure if it was amused or bitter. I fought it off. “Forget it, Lieutenant. Aside from my personal investment in the outcome, I think Mechwarrior Lee’s performance was admirable in this fight. If you and Naomi would both recommend her under normal circumstances, I have no problem signing off on the hire. Unless there’s another issue?”

“Only one, sir.” There was a note of relief in her voice. “The _Firestarter_ belongs to her. I explained that any battlemechs acquired by the company, whether by purchase, salvage, or hiring may be deployed, scrapped, sold, or otherwise used or disposed of as needed. I told her that while all our pilots have preferences, necessities of equipment and personnel availability mean that she may not be the only operator of her battlemech. She agreed to all that, and only asked that, in the event she left the company on good terms, the _Firestarter_ be returned to her.”

I nodded. “Work up a clause for her contract. Give it a minimum duration or number of deployments before she can take her mech with her. We need an extra mech right now, and I don’t want her running off with it after her first bad day.”

“Understood.”

I switched programs on the noteputer and started typing up a work order for the mech techs. “Submit this to Ray once she’s signed on, but not before. We’ll mothball the _Griffin_ to make room for the _Firestarter_ , and that way it’ll be ready to offload if we need some quick cash.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Also, the nature of Mechwarrior Lee’s former employment will stay between me, you, and Naomi. If Lee figures it out on her own and wishes to tell anyone, that’s her prerogative, but as far as we’re concerned, it’s a non-issue. I don’t want to scare off a good pilot or have her looking over her shoulder the whole time she’s here.” I passed the noteputer back.

“Anything else, sir?”

“That’s all.”


	4. Chapter 4

At noon the next day, my hospital bed was surrounded by my command staff, and I was regretting my mandate for an in-person weekly meeting. Of course, I hadn’t been bedridden when I’d first issued that order, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to rescind it now.

“Alright, let’s make this quick,” I said. “Lorne, you first. How long until the _Argo_ disintegrates?”

My chief engineer looked up from his noteputer. Lorne Sorenson was a short, round, blond man fresh from Tharkad, with a mustache that was doing its very best. “I’m afraid disintegration has been delayed yet again, Commander. Hull patching is complete. We can pressurize those areas if we need to, but I would recommend doing it only on an as-needed basis until they can be permanently reopened. No sense pressurizing the pool when it doesn’t have water.

“Other than that, we’re still chasing down random intermittent electrical issues, clearing debris from Gamma pod, and dealing with drive flutter. We need all the help we can get, so if anyone has any free time,” he trailed off and looked around at everyone pointedly not looking at him. “My wife feels the same way,” he concluded. Lorne was one of the few crew members with family aboard. His wife worked in supply.

“Prioritise the drive issues while we’re in orbit,” I said. “I’m sure they’ll be easier to deal with when we’re not under thrust. Tate?”

Tate Tucker was our navigator, in charge of the bridge crew, and also our Leopard pilot on nearly every drop. He looked like he either hadn’t slept in the last 48 hours or had been asleep for all of them. “Nothing to report shipboard. Might have some interesting news from planetside. I’m checking sources, you’ll know if anything comes of it.”

“Do that. Ray?”

“The _Griffin’_ s in a box, and no luck finding a replacement leg. We’re transferring the PPC from it to the _Panther_ while the _Panther’_ s old gun gets some work done. Shad’s complete, and we took the new _Firestarter_ aboard last night. It needs a repaint, sure, but we can drop it now if we need to. There’s also the issue of the second mech bay.”

I tried not to sigh. The second mech bay had been an issue since we got the _Argo_. The ship had three bays that could each hold six battlemechs. We could double our repair and readiness capacity by opening up the second mech bay. But that would also nearly double our mech tech and supply needs, and the budget for them.

“Lorne, is the second mech bay safe to occupy?” I asked.

He shrugged. “There aren’t any structural issues I’m aware of. We never did a full hazard inspection. I would say it’s safe to occupy, not to use. At least not for repairs.”

“Do the hazard inspection. You and Ray document any potential issues. Ray, you’ll be responsible for addressing them. That means using mech techs, not snatching engineers. If something requires an engineering team, get Lorne a work order. We’ll try to get the bay ready for when we’re actually able to use it, but I’m not going to have this delaying drive repairs or anything else, understood?” The two chiefs nodded sternly before Lorne flashed Ray a congratulatory grin.

Lisa took that as her cue. “I’ve been in talks with the local government. They need help with some anti-pirate patrols in the north. It’s up to a week’s worth of work, less if we manage to flush out the OpFor early on. They’re open to a small hazard bonus due to the radiation. A small handful of our support staff have decided to leave us, I’ve already arranged interviews for replacements.

“Finally, the votes for renaming the company are in.” She paused, and everyone leaned in dutifully. We’d been operating under a temporary MBRC ID since the _Argo_ had been handed over to us. I was terrible with names, so I’d left the decision to a vote after giving everyone on board the chance to nominate names. There had been dozens of choices submitted.

“First, I’d like to congratulate Mr. Tucker,” Lisa continued. Tate’s eyes widened. “Due to his persistent campaigning among the bridge and engineering staff, his submission of ‘The Big Stompy Bot Brigade’ netted a shocking seven total votes.” Ray stifled a giggle, and Lorne patted Tate’s shoulder reassuringly.

“Yeah, yeah, drop the other shoe already,” Tate said.

“With a comfortable majority of 139 votes, we will henceforth be known as the 2nd Argo Lancers,” Lisa said, with a hint of a smile. That had been her own submission.

“It’s a name, sure, but what about colors? Iconography?” Ray asked.

“Red and white, and I don’t know, something knighty?” I said. “Figure it out on your own time, you’re all dismissed.”

“Knew I should have went with Jack-o-Lancers,” Tate muttered as they began to file out. “Orange and black, a big pumpkin on everything, it’s so obvious.”

When everyone else was gone, Lisa tapped her noteputer. “Personnel issues.”

“Let me guess, Brownstone continues to leave a trail of broken support staff hearts in her wake, Tate doesn’t get enough sleep, and you don’t like Naomi.”

Lisa blinked. “Mechwarrior Brownstone has managed to keep her libido in check following the incident last week. Both techs are back on duty, although Mr. Sorenson has them on alternate shifts in different areas of the ship.”

“Well that’s good,” I said. Mechwarrior passions tended to run hot in regards to the three F’s: food, fighting, and ‘friendship.’ Brownstone had a way of avoiding attachment, but her flings inevitably fell hard for her. Two techs had had a brawl over it the week before, and Lisa and I had told Brownstone to restrict her escapades to shore leave.

“Mr. Tucker does _not_ get enough sleep,” Lisa went on, “And I think you should be more concerned about it. His quarters and bridge station are littered with energy drinks and bottles of stim pills. He stays on the bridge even when he’s off duty, it’s like he can’t bear to let the ship out of his sight.”

“It hasn’t affected his performance.”

“Yet. We’ve been purely routine so far. If our mechwarriors need emergency evac, or the Directorate’s loyalists come after the _Argo_ again, or any number of other situations arise, he will need to be in top condition. Never mind that he’s a prime candidate for switching to amphetamines as he builds a tolerance for everything else he’s consuming.”

“Alright, alright. Let Doctor Mackey know what’s going on. Next time Tate’s scheduled to be off duty, order him down here. Doc’ll get him sorted out.”

Lisa nodded. “As for Lieutenant Vue, she is a competent mechwarrior and lance leader, and I have no complaints on that front. Our personalities are less compatible than I would like, but we are both professionals, and that will not impact our duties.”

“I was just ribbing you, Lisa.”

“I’m aware. Mechwarrior Lee signed her paperwork this morning. I had planned to have her do a run with Lieutenant Vue’s lance in the simulators this afternoon.”

“Do that. But have A-team be the OpFor. Tell Lani to whip up a realistic force composition, but limit Alpha Squad to our stable. Lee can use her _Firestarter_.”

Lisa grimaced. “Tell me you’re not caving to the Alpha Squad...thing.”

I laughed. I had once referred to Lani’s lance as the A-team and Naomi’s as the B-team. I don’t know why I hadn’t anticipated Naomi and her lance taking offense, but they did, and began loudly and insistently referring to themselves as Alpha Squad. “A little morale goes a long way, Lisa.”

She sighed. “Anything for morale, I suppose. If there’s nothing else?”

“One thing. When the evening shuttle goes planetside tonight, you will be on board with a 24-hour pass. I’m going to give you a prepaid card, and you’re going to make sure it’s empty by the time you get back.” I held up my hand before she could protest. “I’m not telling you to go clubbing with the pilots. See a movie, go to a museum, I don’t care, but take some you time. I need my XO to relax as much as I need my navigator to get some sleep.”

“Anything for morale, sir,” she muttered. “Is that all?”

“That’s all. See you at the simulators.” She left without a word.


	5. Chapter 5

**NOOKIE**

Mayra Lee stood in the locker room attached to the _Argo’_ s simulator hall. Her three lancemates were relaxed, joking among themselves, and mostly ignoring her. That was fine. She was new. Again. Maybe this merc company—the 2nd Argo Lancers, according to the shipwide announcement that had gone out an hour ago—wouldn’t be shot out from under her in the first few months like the last two.

“Listen up,” lance leader Naomi Vue barked. She was a tanned, athletic, Asian woman with streaks of blonde in her hair. She had an air that reminded Mayra of some of the more vicious street gangsters back home, but she had so far been friendly and professional. During her hiring interview, Mayra had gotten the impression that Lieutenant Nakamura was keeping Vue in check.

“Formal introduction time,” Vue went on. “This is Alpha Squad’s newest member, Mayra Lee. She’ll be going by Nookie for this op, and until she earns a better callsign. Nookie, these are your lancemates, Consuela ‘Biscuit’ Brownstone and Leanne ‘Whatever-the-hell-it-is-this-week’ Bakshi.”

“Duck this week,” Bakshi said. She gave Mayra a little wave, and Brownstone offered a nod.

The self-consciousness Mayra had first felt upon seeing her new lancemates swelled. Brownstone looked like she had just stepped out of a beer ad, and Bakshi wouldn’t have been out of place as the lost heiress of an ancient and prestigious noble house in some holovid romance.

“Hello,” Mayra said.

“Don’t let the shrinking violet routine fool you,” Vue said. “The battleROMs I’ve seen would make you glad she’s on our side. Now, down to business.” She pointed to the door that led to the simulator hall. “Malo is out there with the so-called A-team. They’re gonna put us through our paces while we see what the new kid can do. We are going to spank them so hard they’ll be going by P-team when we’re done.”

“Wouldn’t Z-team be better?” Brownstone asked.

“Z sounds too cool,” Bakshi said, shaking her head.

“And P-team means they’re a bunch of little piss babies,” Vue said. “There’s layers to this shit. Anyway, this is gonna be a simple search and destroy. The official briefing says something about eradicating seditionist elements, yadda yadda, we don’t need a story for a simulator run. I expect we’ll be facing twoish lances. Composition beats the hell out of me. Probably light to medium. Maybe some vehicles. I don’t know what kind of budget Malo was given, but I do expect she’ll try to get weird with it. This is as much a test for the rest of us as it is for Nookie.”

Mayra tried not to grimace at the callsign. She’d been Blue 3 with her last company, Lightning with the one before that. Each group had their own way of assigning them, and it sounded like the Lancers used placeholders for new hires. She could be Nookie for now.

“If there’s no questions, let’s go roast some snobs,” Vue said, and kicked open the door.

The simulator hall was big, but cramped. The walls were lined with cockpit-sized pods, each one with its own system of motors to mimic the jostlings and impacts of mech combat, along with climate control systems to simulate heat buildup. With all the supplementary machinery and moving parts, there wasn’t room for an audience of any size, but Mayra knew there was a viewing gallery just outside the hall. It would probably be full of off-duty personnel looking for a show, not to mention Lieutenant Nakamura and the company commander she still hadn’t met. But at least simulator combat didn’t have much risk of violent death. Much.

Alpha Squad picked their pods. Mech profiles weren’t tied to specific pods, but everyone had their own preferences and superstitions. A few were already marked as occupied; those must have been A-team. Mayra climbed into the first one she came to. The neurohelmet fit snugly after a small adjustment, and it only took her a moment to find the feed for her cooling vest. She selected her _Firestarter’_ s profile, and the cockpit came to life.

The generic simulator controls were positioned slightly wrong, and the artificial reactor vibration wasn’t quite the same as her real battlemech’s, but it was all close enough. She was home.

The screen before her displayed rolling hills, with a ridge in the distance and a forest off to the right. She was at the rear of a diamond of mechs that also included a _Shadow Hawk_ , _Commando_ , and _Panther_. Her targeting computer labeled them as friendly, with respective callsigns of Knuckles, Duck, and Biscuit.

“Say something if you can’t hear me,” Vue’s voice came through clear in the neurohelmet’s speakers. No one spoke. “Okay, good. We’re going to advance to the ridge, hundred-meter line abreast. Nookie, me, Biscuit, Duck. Nookie and Duck, you’re watching flanks. Biscuit, pop anything that shows over the ridge. I’ll steer.”

“Roger,” Mayra said, following Biscuit and Duck’s own affirmatives. She eased the throttle forward, swinging to the left to form a line and matching her pace with the _Shadow Hawk_. Her sensors were blank, but she kept her eyes on her assigned sector. A well-camouflaged mech could fool sensors, and sometimes the flash of weapons fire was the first indication of an enemy presence. Especially if that enemy was a more easily-hidden vehicle or infantry section.

“Contact!” Duck yelled. Her _Commando_ was already at full throttle, narrowly avoiding a flight of missiles that cratered the ground around it.

“LRMs came from behind the ridge,” Biscuit said. “They must have a spotter in the trees.”

“Swing right,” Vue ordered. “Get out of range of the ridge, but don’t get drawn into the woods.”

“I can flush them out,” Mayra said.

“Do it.”

More LRMs peppered the lance as they put distance between them and the ridge, none of them doing more than scratch paint. “Flights of five,” Biscuit said. “Any guesses what they’ve got back there?”

“They’ll stick an LRM-5 on anything,” Vue snapped. “I’m more interested in what’s spotting for them. Where’s the flushing, Nookie?”

“On it,” Mayra said. She angled her mech into the treeline, and her sensors went red with the reactor signatures of mechs powering up around her. Four _Javelins_. They must have been shut down, spotting visually rather than with sensors. That would explain the missiles’ inaccuracy. Well, they weren’t hiding anymore. A barrage of lasers exploded a tree in front of Mayra, and she stomped her jumpjet controls.

Plumes of fire erupted from the _Firestarter’_ s back, lifting it up through the canopy. Mayra pivoted in the air, trying to get a glimpse of the ridgeline before landing behind the lance of _Javelins_. The ridge revealed nothing, but the forest in front of her was churning with combat. The _Javelins_ dodged nimbly through the trees, trading fire with her lancemates. Mayra was in a very dangerous place. A stray shot from the _Shadow Hawk_ or the _Panther_ could cripple her. Time to move.

She triggered two of her flamers and ran. Lasers, explosives, and the _Javelins’_ own jumpjets had already ignited a few small fires along the treeline. They were tealights compared to the inferno Mayra touched off. When her _Firestarter_ burst clear of the forest it was at the head of a 300-meter long crescent of flame. The _Javelins_ could try to get past, but they ran hot as it was. Jumping over or running through the fire would push their heat levels dangerously close to emergency shutdown. Their only way out was right through Alpha Squad. They took it.

“They’re flushed,” Biscuit said wryly as the skinny mechs swarmed out of the trees, cutting loose with lasers and SRMs. Her _Panther’_ s PPC wasn’t much use in such tight quarters, and she jumped backwards. “We’ve got regular and extra spicy Javs here, watch it,” she said, referring to the missile and laser variants. There was a pair of each type.

One of the laser _Javelins_ turned on Mayra. It was fast, and two of its medium lasers flayed armor from the _Firestarter’_ s left side. Mayra threw her weight into the controls, juking the mech as she closed the distance between them. Her own lasers slashed across the other mech’s torso. It rotated to track her, and she triggered her jumpjets. A quartet of green laser beams filled the space where her mech had been.

The _Firestarter_ came down behind the _Javelin_. Mayra didn’t wait for a target lock, she was too close to miss. She triggered everything she had. Two medium lasers boiled away the _Javelin’_ s thin rear armor, and her machineguns tore into the exposed interior. At least, she assumed that was happening. All she could see was the fountain of fire roiling from all four of her flamers. Sweat ran down her face as the cockpit temperature rose, but that was nothing compared to what was happening inside the _Javelin_.

She pulled her mech back a step. Through the clearing smoke, what little remained of the _Javelin’_ s back glowed a dull red. Mayra triggered her machineguns again, probing for exposed vitals while the _Firestarter’_ s cooling system recovered from jumpjetting into an alpha strike. A cloud of steam burst from inside the enemy mech. The MGs had slagged a heat sink. The _Javelin_ slumped forward, then toppled to the ground, out of the fight. Mayra scanned the battlefield.

Two other _Javelins_ were down. The final one was limping in reverse to the blackened remains of the treeline. A gout of flame belched from the autocannon on Vue’s _Shadow Hawk_ , and the shells tore a hole in the _Javelin’_ s chest. Duck’s _Commando_ sent a flight of SRMs into the breach, and the ensuing explosion sent the _Javelin_ sprawling. It didn’t get up.

“Nothing new from the ridge,” Vue said. “Everyone still in one piece? Nookie?”

“Still together,” Mayra said.

“Left arm took a beating,” Biscuit said. “All the important stuff’s still working.”

“I could use an extra ton of armor,” Duck said. “Or, if anyone’s got a spare _Atlas_ in their pocket, that would be nice.”

“Mine’s in my other pants,” Vue said. “No action from the ridge. You’d think they would have pushed while we were occupied.”

“Maybe they’re flanking?” Mayra ventured.

“Or trying to bait us in,” Biscuit said.

“Something,” Vue said. “Alright, Biscuit, you and me will make for the ridge through what’s left of the woods. It’s not much cover, but it’s something. Duck and Nookie, head straight up. Don’t leave us too far behind, but use your speed if they show. Keep them tied up and we’ll pop them as we close. If you can lure them down from the ridge, even better. Move out.”

Mayra spurred her _Firestarter_ into a trot, keeping pace with Duck’s _Commando_ while the other two mechs made for the charred remnants of the forest. She settled her crosshairs on the top of the ridge and checked the rangefinder. 1200 meters and quickly dropping. Sensors could pick up a mech’s reactor signature out to about a thousand, so if they were lurking just out of sight on the reverse slope—

“Enemy detected,” the computer intoned, and a battlemech crested the rise. Mayra shoved her throttle to full and dashed to her right. She glanced at her targeting display, saw the tag identifying the other mech as a _Vindicator_ , saw the smoke and ignition flash of rocket motors as a flight of LRMs sailed from its chest just as the missile lock warning sounded. She jerked the throttle back and hauled on the controls, planting the _Firestarter’_ s foot to skid into an almost-pirouette. The missiles sailed past, missing her by a few feet.

“Contact,” Mayra said. “ _Vindicator_ on the ridge. Make that two _Vindicators_ ,” she added as a second battlemech stepped into view.

“I’ll take lefty,” Duck said. Her _Commando_ sprinted ahead, closing to a range where its SRMs could go to work.

Mayra did the same, firing her jumpjets and hitting the ground at a run toward the other _Vindicator_. Two more enemy signatures beeped into being on her sensor display. “Two more contacts. Looks like a _Griffin_ —agh!” A PPC blast slammed into the _Firestarter’_ s chest, tearing away armor and throwing her against the cockpit restraints.

“Eyes on target, Nookie,” Vue said. “Fourth baddie is some kind of missile boat, he’s giving us hell with indirect fire. The other three are spotting for him. You two just stay alive, we’re coming.”

Mayra opened up with her lasers as soon as she was in range. The _Vindicator_ didn’t seem to notice. _Just stay alive_ , Vue had said, as if that wasn’t all Mayra had been doing for the last two years.

The next few minutes were a blur. Her _Firestarter_ danced around the _Vindicator_ , whittling at it with lasers. She caught brief glimpses of Duck’s _Commando_ trading blows with the other _Vindicator_. She couldn’t tell if either had the upper hand. The _Griffin_ landed in her periphery, firing into the distance, and she jumped to its side, opening up with her flamers. A laser lashed across the _Firestarter’_ s thin rear armor. The _Vindicator_ , making her pay for turning her attention elsewhere.

She jumped again, scouring the _Vindicator_ with laser fire as she passed overhead. The cockpit was hot, bordering on too hot. She landed closer than she meant to and barely ducked away from the charging mech. Its forearm scraped across the _Firestarter’_ s shoulder, and her mech shuddered with the impact. Mayra leaned hard to one side, trying to keep her balance and, through the neurohelmet, her battlemech’s. It had been a near miss. A more solid hit could have taken the _Firestarter’_ s arm off. Or caved in the cockpit.

She spun in place and stabbed at the _Vindicator’_ s back with both lasers. A wave of heat washed over her. The cooling vest was doing all it could, but _Firestarters_ weren’t known for great heat management. Sweat stung her eyes. She had to lay off the lasers or the jumpjets. _Just stay alive._

Lasers it was, then. Keep moving, and keep the enemy shooting. She didn’t have to return fire. Every other member of her lance was packing more firepower than her. She just had to keep the bad guys mad.

The _Vindicator_ turned and lashed out with its medium and small lasers, scorching lines across the _Firestarter’_ s left leg and arm. It triggered its jumpjets, leaping backwards. It was trying to gain distance to bring its PPC back into play. Mayra charged. She was smaller, quicker. A medium mech couldn’t fall back from her if she didn’t want it to. A white-hot PPC blast flashed past her cockpit, missing by a foot or two, and her displays crackled from the proximity of the artificial lighting.

She ducked to the left, feinting a run into the _Vindicator’_ s rear arc. When it turned to track her, she stopped and blasted it with her flamers. That would give her a few more seconds before the other pilot would be willing to fire the heat-intensive PPC again. She reversed course and tried to find another target before the _Vindicator_ recovered.

Duck was 400 meters away, savaging the other _Vindicator_ with SRM fire. The _Commando_ was missing an arm. The _Griffin_ was upslope and a bit closer. Mayra headed for it. The pilot must have seen her coming. It launched a brace of LRMs in her general direction and ran. Something smashed into its leg and almost sent it sprawling. Autocannon fire. The cavalry had arrived.

Vue’s _Shadow Hawk_ was pocked from missile fire. One leg was nearly stripped of armor, and there were several nasty PPC scars across its torso. Biscuit’s _Panther_ was worse. As a light mech with a big gun, it was a priority target. Its surface was a moonscape of cratered missile impacts, it had a slight limp, and Mayra could see more exposed myomer than armor on its left arm. Still, they came on.

Mayra spared a single laser shot at the _Griffin_ and turned her attention back to the _Vindicator_. It had taken a hit in the right arm while she’d harassed the _Griffin_ , and she could see an opportunity there. She triggered her machineguns and guided the tracer rounds across the damaged arm. Enough bullets in one place, and one of them could hit something important. And with a PPC mounted on that arm, there were a lot of important somethings to hit.

The _Firestarter_ lurched forward and an alarm sounded. The heat in the cockpit spiked. A flashing warning light told Mayra what she already knew: she’d lost a heat sink. The wireframe diagnostic on the status display told her what she had only guessed: significant rear armor loss. Someone was behind her. She jerked the controls, trying to turn without giving the _Vindicator_ an easy shot. At the top of the ridge, framed by clear, blue sky, was a pristine _Trebuchet_.

So that was the mysterious missile boat that had chewed up Vue and Biscuit on their way in. The mech’s two big LRM launchers opened up, and it almost disappeared in a cloud of rocket exhaust. Mayra was lucky it had only hit her with lasers. Thirty missiles in the back probably would have killed her. Half a klick away, Biscuit’s _Panther_ was rocked by explosions as most of the volley found its mark. She raised her PPC, but it didn’t fire. Too damaged for its intended use, it became a club that smashed into the closest _Vindicator_.

“Nookie, do something about that Trenchbucket!” Vue shouted.

Mayra pushed the _Firestarter_ into a sprint. The _Trebuchet’_ s trio of medium lasers stabbed at her. Two of them found their mark in a leg, and the _Firestarter_ staggered. Mayra hit the jumpjets, and the sweltering air around her rose another five degrees. She could take it. She hoped. The _Firestarter_ landed and rocked again. Missile hits in the back. Probably the _Vindicator_. She needed to get turned, to protect her back. An alarm went off. Another heat sink gone. The _Trebuchet_ fired another volley of missiles, from just one launcher this time. It was probably getting pretty warm itself. That’s what she needed.

Even with a damaged leg, she could limp faster than the big missile boat could track her. She wrestled the _Firestarter_ into position and triggered her flamers and machineguns. With half an hour and unlimited ammo, the MGs might have been able to chew a hole in the fresh armor of a 50-ton battlemech. Mayra had neither, but the sound of hundreds of bullets smashing into their mech could unnerve some pilots and cause mistakes. The flamers would be even scarier.

The _Trebuchet_ ran. Mayra chased, still pouring it on. Through the flames, she caught glimpses of armor glowing bright yellow. So it _had_ been running hot. And hot armor was soft armor. She stopped her flamers and directed her machineguns at the brightest places on the _Trebuchet_. It slowed and rotated, trying to throw off her aim. She glanced at her heat monitor. A few hairs below critical. Good enough. She settled her crosshairs on the _Trebuchet_. Smoke gasped from its overworked heat sinks. The targeting reticule turned gold with a lock, and she fired her lasers. Armor boiled, and everything went black.

“Huh?” Mayra said. No one answered. She pulled off her neurohelmet. Fans whirred and the simulator cockpit began to fill with cool air as it stuttered back into its rest position. The door opened, and a smiling med tech held out a hand.

“Hey there,” he said. “Let me help you out. Feeling okay? Any injuries, nausea, anything like that?”

Mayra sank onto the step that led to the simulator and accepted an electrolyte drink from the med tech. She downed half of it and shook her head. Sweat dripped from her hair. “Did I die?”

The med tech looked at a monitor on the side of the pod. “I don’t think so. Took a heck of beating, though.”

Mayra nodded and took another swig. The air in the simulator hall felt frigid, and she could see faint waves of heat wafting from her pod’s open door. “Did we win?”

“Hell yeah, we won.” It was Lieutenant Vue. She clapped Mayra on the back and waved off the medic. “Nasty job you worked on that Trenchbucket. That’s what clinched it.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” she laughed. “Come to the mess after you get cleaned up. You can meet the A-team, get to know the rest of us better.”

“Yes, sir.” Mayra looked around the room. The other mechwarriors were filing out. One of the A-teamers, a man she would have thought homeless in another context, smiled and flicked her a casual salute. Duck—that was, Mechwarrior Bakshi—gave her an appreciative nod.

“That’s not an order,” Vue went on. “Do what you want. They’ll think it’s weird if you don’t show, but Kerensky knows there’s weirder quirks than being shy on this ship. And the ‘sir’ stuff isn’t strictly necessary. With me, anyway.”

Mayra drained the last of her drink and stood. “About that. I was reading through Lieutenant Nakamura’s orientation handbook. I’m not very clear on the rank structure you use here.”

“It’s real simple,” Vue said as they walked to the locker room. “We don’t have one. Commander’s at the top, then Lisa as XO, and the rest of the command staff are the heads of their departments. Bridge, mechs, whatever. We’ve got two senior mechwarriors, that’s me for Alpha and Malo on A-team. Commander picked us to lead each lance, but it’s a pretty informal designation. In the field, we pick a lance leader before each op. Usually it’s that lance’s senior, but we try to give everyone a regular chance unless they refuse.”

“So the lieutenant—”

“It’s more a title than a rank. Me, Malo, Nakamura, some of the mech staff, we all came from state militaries at some point, so we get to use our old rank if we want. Me, I don’t want. I left those people for a reason. Lisa, on the other hand, will use every formal address she can for you. I’m always Lieutenant Vue to her, you’ll always be Mechwarrior Lee, and she probably calls some tech Electrician’s Mate Second Class Jones or something.”

Mayra nodded. It was a lot, but she was used to changes by now. Lots of companies had strict military structure, even small ones where it wasn’t entirely warranted. Others were little more than barely-organized pirates that had somehow maintained good standing with the MRBC. The Lancers seemed like a logical middle ground.

“So what do I call you?” Mayra asked.

“Naomi, Knuckles, Vue. Sir, if you insist, but I won’t.” She stripped off her cooling vest and tossed it into a laundry bin. Mayra noted a wide scar just under her collar bone. Shrapnel, maybe. “Showers are around the corner,” Vue went on. “When you get done, head back out through the sim hall. You can follow the signs to the mess, or wherever.” She disappeared around the corner, and Mayra heard the shower start.

Mayra dug a change of clothes out of her locker and went to the shower stall at the end. Every mechwarrior had their own combat dress preferences. Some went shirtless aside from the cooling vest, some had some kind of light undershirt to cut down on chafing. Most wore loose athletic shorts, a few didn’t bother with more than underwear. The important thing was to keep cool. Mayra preferred shorts and a tight, sweat-wicking shirt. It seemed to make the cooling vest more efficient and, more importantly, kept her covered.

Safely locked in the shower stall, she peeled the shirt off. On her shoulder blades, two lions gripped an anguished man in their teeth. One bit his arm, forcing him to drop a curved sword. Blood poured from his wounds, the crimson torrent fading to a peaceful blue as it curved above her hip and swirled across her stomach, ending in a koi leaping across her chest. If the wrong people saw it, they would torture and kill her.

Ten minutes later, she found the mess hall. It was more like a large diner than a military cafeteria, and she remembered that the _Argo_ was designed primarily as a civilian ship. Four massive pizzas were spread across a counter, and a glass-fronted refrigerator displayed a selection of beer and soda and sports drinks. Mechwarriors lounged on any furniture available, talking and laughing. She grabbed a slice of pizza and turned to find Leanne Bakshi right behind her.

“Hello! I’m Leanne. In case you forgot, I mean. Introductions were kinda rushed. Or Duck, if you prefer. You did great in the simulator.”

Mayra blinked at the sudden onslaught, but she managed to shake Bakshi’s offered hand with a smile. “Thank you,” she said. She tried to figure out how else to respond, but Bakshi saved her the effort.

“You really did. I wanted to make sure you knew, the others all tend to be more sparing with compliments. Don’t want the new kid getting a big head. That’s where your callsign came from, by the way. New kid, nookid, Nookie. Just run it all together. We can sit here. If you want, I mean, I don’t want to impose. I can tell you’re slow to warm up with new people, and they’re all a bunch of sink-or-swim types, so I thought it would help if you had a buddy.”

“No, it’s fine. Thank you,” Mayra said, sinking into a booth across from her designated friend. She wondered how the other woman could possibly have so much energy after the fight, but decided she might come across as too confrontational if she asked. “Where did Duck come from?” she said instead.

“Well, my last name is Bakshi, right? So when I first joined the company, my callsign was Hunch. Hunchback, Hunch Bakshi, get it? Except we don’t even _have_ a _Hunchback_ , and I said I wanted something sexier. So I was Hunk for a whole three days. But then I blew my nose funny one day and Hunk turned into Honk. Which lasted a while, until I had the _Assassin_ on a drop, and something about how I used the jumpjets turned Honk into Goose. Which was worse than Hunch, so I begged Naomi to let me change it. She had the rest of the lance all offer alternatives on the condition that they were all still waterfowl. And ducks are cute, so I went with that, and I really hope this one sticks because it’s turned into a joke that nobody can remember my callsign.”

Mayra slowly swallowed her pizza. “Is everyone else really that, um—”

“Petty? No, it’s nothing like that, it’s all good-natured. I mean, Connie got stuck with being called Biscuit after a stash of biscuits fell out of her locker. Oh, but don’t call her Biscuit off a drop. It’s always Consuela. Except she lets me call her Connie. I think because it bothers some of the staff. She’s kind of a heartbreaker.”

Mayra nodded, and mentally noted how Leanne’s eyes lingered on Brownstone as she talked about her. “Anyone else I should know about?”

“Well, go around the room. The two talking to Naomi over there are Lani Malo and Sam Simpson. A-team’s boss and heir apparent. Both very nice, but Lani’s ex-Free Worlds Militia and can switch to command mode on a dime.” Malo looked like a softer version of Vue, Mayra thought. She had the easy, confident smile of someone who knew exactly what they were capable of. Simpson was tall, dark, and handsome, to put it bluntly. He could have stepped off a recruitment poster.

“The couple in the corner is not a couple, remember that. But they are, like, platonic soul mates. The black-haired one is Jordan Jones, or JJ. If you come back from a drop with only one injury, it’ll be them. I’d almost call them reckless, but they’re very good in a mech brawl. The guy that looks like a drunk is Lawson Braithwaite, but everyone calls him Lodo. It’s short for Lockdown, which is his callsign. Depending on the day, he’s a lazy slob or an asshole snob, but both are an act. He’s good people.” Mayra recognized the man who had saluted her earlier. His companion was short and lean, androgynous and ethnically ambiguous. Probably a Canopian, she guessed.

“And of course, you already met Connie,” Leanne went on, looking past Mayra.

“Hey,” Brownstone said, pulling up a chair. She had two slices of pizza sandwiched together, hot sauce dripping from between them. “Giving Nookie the who’s who?”

“Yeah,” Leanne said.

“You’re a nightmare in that _Firestarter_ ,” Brownstone said around a mouthful. “Lodo was in the _Griffin_. He said you scared the shit out of him with that first dose you gave him, almost forced an emergency shutdown. Lani was in the Trenchbucket. That one you did shut down. Probably would have caused an ammo explosion, too, but Lani white-flagged it when she realized she was going to lose her missile boat.”

“Why did she wait so long to bring the _Trebuchet_ into the fight?” Mayra asked. It had been bothering her.

“Yeah,” Leanne added. “She could have really hurt us while we fought her spotters.”

“Limited ammo,” Brownstone said between bites. “She’d hoped the _Javelins_ would be more trouble for us, but setting the woods on fire screwed that up. Then the Vindies couldn’t land a decent hit on you two before you closed. The Treb and the _Griffin_ were supposed to be chewing me and Knuckles up, and they did, but Sam and JJ were supposed to be helping. They could have knocked us out, but having you two biting their ankles the whole time messed it up.” She gulped down the rest of her pizza and wiped sauce from her chin. “I feel like shit. See you guys later. Good job, Nookie.” She gave Mayra a light punch on the shoulder and left.

“Bye, Connie,” Leanne said.

“So that’s the local heartbreaker?” Mayra said.

“Yes.”

“I don’t mean to be rude. I get the eyes and the hair and the...proportions. But I’ve seen starving infantrymen do less horrible things to food.”

“She’s got quirks like anyone,” Leanne said quickly. “And even a short sim fight burns a lot of calories.”

“I guess you’re right,” Mayra said. She’d thought she might touch a nerve, and she had. No need to push it.

“Guys love that shit,” Leanne said.

_Not just the guys,_ Mayra thought. “I’m going to get some rest. Thank you for all the help. I thought I might check out the gym later, if you’re interested.”

“Okay. You’re welcome.”

Mayra found her way to her quarters. It was a small, one-room affair, but palatial compared to the cramped bunk spaces on a Leopard or even a Union dropship. She settled into her bed. All in all, it had been a very productive day so far. She’d been lucky Bakshi was so open and talkative. Someone like that would make integrating easier, and the other mechwarriors all seemed competent and professional enough. She’d get to meet the commander tonight, and maybe crack the door to some longer-term goals. No, not a bad first day at all. She set an alarm for an hour later, and in minutes, she was dreaming of fire.


End file.
